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Article history: A geo-material failure process analysis (F-RFPA2D), considering the coupling of stress distribution, fluid
Received 14 July 2008 flow, and element damage evolution, is used to investigate the mechanisms of crack initiation and prop-
Received in revised form 1 December 2008 agation around a 2-D cylindrical cavity in heterogeneous stiff soils during hydraulic fracturing. A large
Accepted 1 December 2008
number of numerical analysis on hydraulic fracturing in stiff soil with pre-existing injection cavity have
Available online 22 January 2009
been carried out to study the mechanism of hydraulic fracturing in stiff soil. In addition, the characteristic
of acoustic emission (AE) due to hydraulic fractures are studied by numerical simulations. The results
Keywords:
provide a better understanding of the crack initiation and propagation mechanisms during hydrofractur-
Hydraulic fracture
Numerical simulation
ing. The simulation software package can be a powerful tool for study of soil behavior during hydraulic
Cavity expansion fractures.
Stiff soil Crown Copyright Ó 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Heterogeneity
0950-0618/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2008.12.004
S.Y. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 23 (2009) 2196–2206 2197
Tension Crack
σθ
R
p(r,t) Pf Pf
u σθ
Cavity expansion
rp p1 with elastic - σ θ' = σ t
r0 deformation
σ0
Elastic region
Fig. 2. Tensile Fracture Mechanisms [34].
Pf ¼ nr3i þ rt ð1Þ
where Pf is hydraulic fracturing pressure; n is an empirical factor Pf = σ3i + nSu (n > 1)
depending on the stress redistribution around a borehole and the
total stress path for the soil, ranging from 1.5 to 1.8; r3i is initial
minor total principal stress in the soil and rt is total tensile strength
of the soil. Fig. 3. Shear Fracture Mechanisms [34].
2198 S.Y. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 23 (2009) 2196–2206
Injection Pressure
Injection Pressure
AE Rate
Injection Stop
AE Rate
Time
Fig. 4. Typical AE signatures for hydraulic fracturing test.
Table 1 σh'
Input material properties parameters for numerical models.
Index Value
Homogeneity index, m 1.5, 3, 5, 8, 15
Coefficient of lateral earth pressure, K0 0.3, 0.5, 0.8, 1, 1.2, 1.5, 2
Young’s modulus, E0 5000 kPa
Effective stress cohesion intercept, C 0 30 kPa
Internal friction angle, /0 30°
Poisson’s ratio, v 0.25
Coefficient of residual strength, g 0.8
Coefficient of permeability, k0 2 109 m/s
Incremental injection pressure, DP 1 kPa
Fig. 5. Numerical model.
S.Y. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 23 (2009) 2196–2206 2199
from Biot’s theory of consolidation. Eq. (11) is introduced to de- where was s the shear stress, r0 was the effective normal stress, C 0
scribe the dependency of permeability on stress and damage. The the effective stress cohesion intercept, /0 the effective stress angle
relationship between permeability and stress is assumed to follow of friction or shearing resistance, r03 the minor effective principal
a negative exponential function. For heterogeneity of geo-materials, stress and r0t the tensile failure strength of the element.
the material properties for different elements are randomly distrib- For an individual element, when the stress of the element satis-
uted throughout the domain of analysis following a Weibull fied the certain strength criterion, the element begins to damage.
distribution: Karihaloo and Fu [24] have used a damage-based constitutive
m1 m law to study the plain concrete tension. According to isotropic elas-
m l l tic damage theory, the elastic modulus of element may degrade
u¼ exp ð12Þ
l0 l0 l0 gradually as damage progresses, and the elastic modulus of dam-
where l = material property variable; l0 = mean value of the corre- aged material can be defined as follows:
sponding material property; m = homogeneity index, i.e., a parame- E ¼ ð1 DÞE0 ð15Þ
ter defined the shape of the distribution function that defined the
degree of material heterogeneity, a larger m implied a more homo- where D is the damage variable and E and E0 are elastic modulus of
geneous material and vice versa. Therefore, the parameter m is the damaged and the undamaged material, respectively. When the
called the homogeneity index in RFPA2D. For higher values of the stress in an element reaches its failure criteria (Eqs. (13 and 14)) the
homogeneity index, the strengths of more elements are concen- damage variable is described as
8
trated closer to l0. et0 6 e
<0
>
In addition, both tensile and shear failures are considered in the r0
D ¼ 1 E0tre etu 6 e < e0 ð16Þ
analysis. An element is considered to have failed in the tension >
:
mode when its minor principal stress exceeds the tensile strength 1 e 6 etu
of the element (Eq. (13)), and to have failed in the shear mode where r0tr is the residual tensile strength and e is the tensile strain of
when the shear stress satisfied the Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion the element.
(Eq. (14)) It is well known that the acoustic emission (AE) can emit due
F ¼ ðC 0 þ r0 tan /0 Þ s ð13Þ to the micro-fractures or voids occurring frequently inside the
soil when the soil is subjected to the internal hydraulic fracture
r03 6 r0t ð14Þ and the surrounding loading. Accordingly, the damage degree of
soil can be expressed by the AE number and amplitude, which is
related with the micro-hydraulic hydraulic fracture evolution in- In all of the sets of simulations, the domain is discretized into
side the stiff soil. In this paper, it is supposed that every fractured many small square elements. Coupled seepage and stress analyses
element could produce a certain amount of AE when it failed [23]. are performed. Injection pressure is applied in a quasi-static man-
In this numerical model, hydraulic fracturing produces typically an ner. At each loading increment, the seepage and stress equations of
AE signature as shown in Fig. 4. It is illustrated that the first burst the elements are solved and the coupling analysis is performed.
of AE with the injection pressure increased gradually. The first The stress conditions of each element are then examined for failure
burst is accompanied with opening of the hydraulically induced before the next load increment. Input parameters for these simula-
crack. The magnitude of the pressure at the end of the first burst tions are tabulated in Table 1. The 2-dimensional plane strain
is regarded as the opening pressure. Furthermore, the AE count numerical model is shown in Fig. 5. The 2 m 2 m domain of anal-
rates remain constant after the first burst, and the injection pres- ysis was divided into 40,000 elements of material properties fol-
sure shows the peak and became constant. The crack should be lowing the Weibull statistical distribution depicted in Eq. (12).
kept open during this time when the injection pressure keeps The value K0 is defined as the initial stresses ratio of r0h =r0v . rh
constant. When the injection is stopped, the injection pressure and rv are imposed as boundary conditions. The initial diameter
starts to decrease. Accordingly, the AE count rates starts to increase of the cavity was 450 mm. The injection pressure in the cavity is
accompanied with the crack closing. The detailed study of the increased in steps of 1 kPa to initiate and propagate cracks around
hydraulic fractures and the associated AE distribution will be the injection cavity.
carried out in the next sections.
In this paper, the results of three sets of simulations are re- 4.1. Crack initiation and propagation around an injection cavity and
ported. The first set of simulations is performed to simulate the the associated AE characteristics
behavior of stiff clay in the vicinity of an expanding cavity due to
the internal hydraulic pressure. The purpose is to develop a better Fig. 6 showed the numerical simulated hydraulic fractures pro-
understanding of the crack initiation and propagation mechanisms. cess with K0 of 1. The injection pressure increased from 0 kPa to
In the second set of simulations, the effect of different K0 on the 60 kPa, and then stopped the injection. Fig. 7 represents the
hydraulic fractures propagation in stiff clay is studied. Meanwhile, numerical simulated space distribution of AE due to hydraulic frac-
the effect of injection rate for the same K0 is studied. In the third tures initiation and propagation. From Fig. 6, when the injection
set of simulations, the influence of the heterogeneity of soils on pressure was 5 kPa, no fractures occurred around the injection
the hydraulic fractures propagation is investigated. cavity. When the injection pressure increased upto 15 kPa, the
Fig. 7. Numerical simulated acoustic emission (AE) distribution due to hydraulic fractures (K0 = 1, m = 3).
S.Y. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 23 (2009) 2196–2206 2201
Fig. 9. Diagram showing the three modes of cracking [35]. Fig. 12. Vertical fracture created by low injection rate test [9].
2202 S.Y. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 23 (2009) 2196–2206
time when the injection pressure kept constant. When the injec-
tion was stopped, the injection pressure started to decrease.
Accordingly, the AE count rates started to increase accompanied
with the crack closing.
As mentioned in Section 2, crack initiation in geo-materials was
considered to be either a tensile failure or shear failure in the mate-
rial. However, what is the relationship of tensile crack and shear
crack during the process of hydraulic fractures? Basically there
are three crack modes (I, II and III). Mode I is the tensile crack,
model II is the shear crack and mode III is the combined crack. They
are illustrated in Fig. 9.
Mode I corresponds to the case of tensional cracking considered
up to this point. In fact, it was the most useful mode to study, as
experimental evidence [25] showed that even a crack which was,
on a macroscopic scale, a mode II crack, actually proceeded by an
incremental process of aligned mode I cracking [26]. This was illus-
trated in Fig. 10. The area ahead of the crack tip is termed the pro-
cess zone. Some researchers has used cohesive crack model to
study the micro-cracked process zone ahead of macro-cracks
Fig. 13. Horizontal fracture created by high injection rate test [9]. [27,28]. Within this process zone, the material might be deformed
by tensional cracking, which become more intense as the loading
increases. Eventually, these micro-cracks link, and the macro-
peak value at 60 s. After that the AE count rates decreased abruptly cracks extend. This process had been numerical simulated in
and remained constant. The crack should be kept open during this Fig. 6. With the increase of injection pressure, failure mechanism
will be a tensile failure enhanced by the excess pore water pressure the mechanism was in fact a combination of the tensile and shear
generated by shearing of soil, which resulted from the stress differ- failure mode.
ential between radial stress and circumference stress. For example,
from Fig. 6, when the injection pressure was 50 kPa, four shear 4.2. influence of lateral pressure coefficient (K0) on hydraulic fracture
cracks occurred and there were many small tensile fractures
around the tip of each shear cracks. Furthermore, the small tensile Some researchers [29] considered horizontal and vertical frac-
fractures interacted and linked to the bigger fractures. Therefore, tures would occur when K0 > 1 and K0 < 1, respectively, as shown
Fig. 16. Evolution of cracks around cavity with low injection rate (K0 = 0.6). Fig. 17. Evolution of cracks around cavity with high injection rate (K0 = 0.6).
2204 S.Y. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 23 (2009) 2196–2206
in Fig. 11. However, Lefebvre et al. [30] thought that vertical frac- lic fracturing. Au [9] suggested that the directions of principal
ture could be formed even when K0 > 1. Furthermore, Massarsch stresses might rotate during the injection process although such
[31] opined that cracks would be likely to occur along vertical rotations might depend on the initial stress conditions. In addition,
planes during hydraulic fracturing tests in clay, independently of the fracture propagation was dependent on the injection rate and
the coefficient of lateral earth pressure, K0. K0 of soil. Figs. 12 and 13 show the vertical and horizontal fracture
In addition, some researchers [32,33] had considered the soil with low and high injection rates in soils for K0 < 1, respectively. It
material properties as an important factor influencing the hydrau- is thus very difficult to study the crack initiation and propagation
Fig. 18. Numerical simulated hydraulic fractures process for different homogeneity index (m).
S.Y. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 23 (2009) 2196–2206 2205
Fig. 19. Influence of material heterogeneity on the stress-strain curves for five specimens with different homogeneity indices.
processes in soil during grouting thoroughly by experiments due to index were modeled to study the influence of heterogeneity on the
the heterogeneity of soil and the complexity of boundary condi- hydraulic fractures. Fig. 18 shows the numerical simulated hydrau-
tions. Therefore, numerical simulations are used in this lic fractures process for different homogeneity index (m = 1.5, 3, 5,
investigation. 8, 15). The higher m value represents the more homogeneous of
Fig. 14 shows the numerical simulated hydraulic fractures pro- soil. It could be seen from Fig. 15 that, the heterogeneity of soil
cess when K0 was 0.3, 0.5 and 0.8, respectively. Fig. 15 showed the had an important influence on the fracture propagation pattern.
numerical simulated hydraulic fractures process when K0 was 1.2, For instance, when m = 1.5, many micro-cracks around the injec-
1.5 and 2.0, respectively. From Fig. 14, the vertical fractures oc- tion cavity clustered in the soil with the increasing of hydraulic
curred when K0 < 1. In comparison, the horizontal fractures oc- pressure. However, for much more homogeneous soils (m = 8), only
curred when K0 > 1. Both the vertical and horizontal fractures few micro-cracks occurred around the injection cavity and a main
fracture initiated and propagated at approximately perpendicular fracture formed and propagated vertically. In addition, the hydrau-
to the direction of the minor principal stress. It is interesting to no- lic fractures propagated more symmetrically in more homoge-
tice that when K0 = 0.8, the fractures propagated in the direction of neous soil. For instance, for the case of m = 1.5, the fractures
about 10o to the vertical direction. That is because the directions of were not symmetric, however, for the case of m = 20, the fractures
principal stresses might rotate during the injection process. Simi- were almost symmetric. The numerical results indicated the heter-
larly, when K0 = 1.2 and 1.5, the fractures did not propagate totally ogeneity of soil was sensitive to influence the stress field modifica-
following the horizontal direction. tion when crack occurred, and then influenced the propagation of
Another factor to affect the hydraulic fractures initiation and fractures.
propagation is the injection rate (increment of injection pressure/ Fig. 19 showed the influence of material heterogeneity on the
time). Figs. 16 and 17 show the evolution of fractures around cavity stress-strain relationships for five specimens with different homo-
with low and high injection rate, respectively, when K0 = 0.6. For geneity indices (m = 1.5, 3, 5, 8, 15). In these five cases, the injec-
the numerical simulation of low injection rate, both tensile cracks tion pressure increased gradually with the same injection rate.
and shear cracks were initiated due to the increasing injection The stress-train curves were given by uniaxial loading the speci-
pressure. However, the propagation of tensile cracks, i.e., cracks mens. In fact the numerical simulated stress-strain curves in
in the vertical direction, stopped at the injection pressure of Fig. 19 represented the coupling effect of hydraulic pressure and
approximately 25 kPa. However, shear cracks continued to propa- heterogeneity of soil on the shear strength. From Fig. 19, it was
gate. In this case, both the injection pressure and K0 condition con- clear that the stress-strain relation and the strength characteriza-
trolled the initiation of fractures. However, the propagation of tion depended strongly on the heterogeneity of the specimen. For
fractures was dominated by K0 for the relative low injection rate. the low homogeneous index (m = 1.5 or 3), the shape of the
In contrast, for the case of high injection rate in Fig. 19, only the strain–strain curves had a gentler post-peak behavior. The peak
vertical cracks around the cavity initiated and propagated. It indi- shear strength of the specimens was also related to the homogene-
cated that the injection rate dominated the propagation of frac- ity index. The higher the value of the homogeneity index, the
tures other than K0. higher the strength of the specimen. Furthermore, the curves
became even linear and the strength loss was also sharper for
4.3. Influence of heterogeneity of soil on hydraulic fracture the more homogeneity specimens.
Much stiff clay forming part of slopes and the core section of 5. Conclusions
earth dams exist in the fissured state. These fissures or cracks in
the clay can produce stress concentrations that can force the clay A geo-material Failure Process Analysis developed for heteroge-
beyond its peak strength, producing as a result the non-uniform neous stiff geo-materials coupling stress, seepage and element
mobilization of strength, and thus causing the progressive failure damage evolution are introduced to investigate the behavior of
of the clay. In this section, soil samples with different homogeneity the crack initiation and propagation in stiff clay during injection.
2206 S.Y. Wang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 23 (2009) 2196–2206
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